April of 1965 was a relatively uneventful month in western culture. If you research it, you'll see that nothing particularly critical happened during those thirty days. However, even though it never showed up on any of society's radar screens, one event did take place that was to change the entire world. John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles went to dinner at their dentist's home and unbeknownst to them, the dentist slipped LSD into their after-dinner coffee.
They had no idea of what was going to happen, but according to George, although things were a little rocky at first, it turned out to be quite a night. As he put it, "I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience within twelve hours. It changed me, and there was no way back to what I was before."
He also said that as he was coming back to normal consciousness, a thought occurred to him that had no connection to any part of his life and he had no idea where it had come from. This thought, that came to him completely out of nowhere, was simply this: "The yogis of the Himalayas."
Now LSD was relatively new and still legal at the time. An extremely powerful psychedelic drug, many famous celebrities had taken it and had profound experiences including Carey Grant, Groucho Marx and Jack Nicholson, along with renowned Harvard professors, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. And speaking of Harvard, there are still rumors that JFK took acid several times as well, with his longtime companion Mary Meyers. Timothy Leary hints that he played a key role in those events in his autobiography, "Flashbacks." Again, it was still legal and there were no prohibitions to it.
Anyway, a few months after the incident in their dentist's home, whether or not it had anything to do with his thought of the "yogis of the Himalayas," George introduced Indian music to pop culture when he played the sitar on the Beatles song "Norwegian Wood."
This was the early beginnings of a revolutionary change in popular culture as the band began to introduce a new genre that would eventually become known as psychedelic music. Not only did their sound change, but their songs took on a new depth of meaning, with primary examples being "Nowhere Man," "The Word," "In My Life," "Elanor Rigby," "I'm Only Sleeping," "Tomorrow Never Knows," 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Within You, Without You." They were all part of a remarkable string of three groundbreaking albums: "Rubber Soul," "Revolver" and "Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band."
Now, it's nearly sixty years later and all of these songs are looked at as just great classics. But back then, they were incredibly revolutionary and the Beatles themselves were even more so. Along with their radical appearance and their welcoming approach to marijuana, psychedelics and the expansion of consciousness, they were at the forefront of an astounding cultural shift that would radically alter not only England and America, but every other country throughout the entire civilized world.
And it all went to the next level in February of 1968 when the Beatles travelled to India to study meditation with a guru named Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. And as usual, they weren't shy about telling the world what they were doing. The massive publicity surrounding their trip created a major sensation that rocked the whole world.
Now as earthshattering as all this was, it wasn't the first time that Indian spirituality, with its reverence for the expansion of consciousness, had made a profound impact on western culture. Far from it. In one way or another it had been going on since the 1500s.
Unfortunately, it came about as the result of a rather brutal societal development. Certain European nations established superior military might and mixed it with ever-increasing naval reach. And with an appalling display of the greed-driven, incredibly destructive delusion that "might makes right," they began to conquer and subjugate as much of the world as they could get their hands on. They would routinely invade a foreign country, enslave its people and plunder their resources. All in the name of civilization, of course.
A prime example of this arrogance of power is what England did to India. Although the British had been in the land for centuries, they finally conquered it completely in 1876. Queen Victoria became the Empress of India and the exploitation of the country moved into full swing.
But something unexpected happened as well and it became an example of something extremely positive resulting from something extremely negative. Along with all the horrors that came with the conquest, an inevitable interaction of Indian and English cultures got underway along with it. And nowhere was the distinction between the two cultures more evident than in the realm of religion.
The difference was somewhat stark. Western religion was basically a societal matter, where people would gather at houses of worship, sing songs of praise to God and hear sermons from clerical leaders that promoted higher ethical, moral and religious standards.
In India it was a little different. Their religion had been around for over five thousand years and was the oldest in the world. And although it did have many similarities to its Western counterpart, it had some significant differences as well. For instance, according to its teachings, not only is there a God, but rather than being far away and unapproachable, it is actually within you right now and is completely accessible to you at all times.
If you wish, you can evolve your consciousness to the point where you can become enlightened and actually merge with it. So, you didn't have to die to go to heaven, you could do it while you were still alive. In fact, doing it was the actual point of being alive.
And also, given the idea that it was possible to reach this higher level of consciousness, rather than having clerics who could only give speeches and sermons about the higher realms, they had beings who had supposedly attained the enlightened state and were talking about something they actually knew, rather than something they just believed. And not only that, they had the ability to show you how to get there as well.
They called these teachers "Swamis," "Yogi's" or "Gurus," which was an interesting term word because "Gu" means darkness and "Ru" means light, and a true spiritual guru can take you from inner darkness to inner light. And this isn't supposed to be just a bunch of words and concepts, it's experiential. In other words, if you were thirsty, you weren't confined to just hearing stories about people who had gotten to drink water, you could actually drink it yourself.
Now a couple of these Gurus had made it to the United States over the years and their impact had been extremely significant. The first one was named Swami Vivekananda who travelled to Chicago in 1893 to address the First World's Parliament of Religion.
The Swami created quite a stir and his talk was, in a word, a sensation. The attendees to the conference felt they had heard someone address them who was in a uniquely elevated state and seemed to be speaking about God consciousness from direct personal experience. And there was something extraordinary about being in his physical presence. It wasn't just uplifting and inspiring. It was actually elevating. It was palpable. Indeed, one of the delegates, Professor John Henry Wright of Harvard University told him, "To ask you, Swami, for your credentials is like asking the sun about its right to shine."
After his ground-breaking appearance in Chicago, Vivekananda's reputation grew rapidly and he travelled to New York and gave lectures to sold out auditoriums, where people waited for hours to buy tickets. One night, New York's most prominent actress Sarah Barnhart held a party for him and introduced him to her friends Nicola Tesla and Mark Twain. His vast influence spread from there and even though he passed away in 1902, at the age of just 39, he continues to be a renowned and deeply respected authority on inner growth.
Then in 1920 another Guru from India arrived in America, this time in Boston, in the form of Parmahansa Yogananda. He was also a powerful presence whose impact quickly grew to the extent that he was able to reach millions of people, encouraging them to evolve and grow their inner consciousness. As his life work evolved, along with remaining a powerful force in India, he became a major phenomenon throughout the West and indeed the entire world.
Not only was Yogananda a magnetic speaker, he was also a brilliant and profoundly prolific writer. He went on to establish a major center for mediation in Los Angeles and many local residents of the area studied his work. The internationally esteemed author W. Summerset Maugham cited him as a primary inspiration for his 1944 masterpiece novel, "The Razor's Edge," which is about one American man's search for enlightenment following his harrowing experiences in World War I. In 1946, it became a well-loved motion picture as well.
The next truly major interaction between India and Western culture happened when Mahatma Gandhi visited London at the end of 1931, and this was quite a phenomenon.
Although Gandhi was the head statesman of his country, when he came to England, instead of wearing formal western clothing, he only wore his simple handwoven Indian cloth and sandals. He always looked like he was walking through the blistering heat of India, although he was in the freezing temperatures of England, with its shivering rains. Wherever he went, he was mobbed by massive crowds who were in awe of his presence. Not only were his words inspiring, he also had a piercing wit. As he was about to depart, a reporter asked him, "What do you think about Western Civilization. "I think it would be a good idea," he shot back.
A few years later in August of 1935 Gandhi met with Parmahansa Yogananda, who initiated him into the practice of Kriya Yoga, an advanced form of meditation. But to Gandhi, the ground breaking elevation of consciousness had applications that were societal as well as individual. And in response to the increasingly harsh British domination of India, Gandhi began to institute a process he called "Satagraha" which means "holding onto truth," with its emphasis on non-violent civil disobedience.
Although it was a slow and difficult process, it was extremely powerful and twelve years later, the British were driven out of India with relatively little violence. It was a truly incredible example of the application of evolved consciousness to resolve a cruel societal injustice.
But that wasn't the end of it. In the late forties, an African-American theology student at Morehouse College in Atlanta was introduced to these remarkable works of the Mahatma. Intrigued, the student began a serious study of Gandhi and the unique way he had been able to terminate British rule
Upon his graduation, that student was ordained to the Baptist ministry at the age of 19. And of course, that student was Martin Luther King, Jr. As his activities in the civil rights movement began to evolve and grow, he became more interested in the idea of applying Gandhi's methods to break the chains of racial oppression that were so overwhelmingly prevalent throughout the land.
It all culminated on February 3, 1959 when King and his wife Coretta, embarked on a three-month trip to India to get more familiar with Gandhi's approach. "To other countries I may go as a tourist," he said upon his arrival. "But to India I come as a pilgrim."
During his stay, his study of Gandhi deepened considerably. As an ordained minister, he was taken with Gandhi's profound spiritual understandings and in his closing remarks he said, "In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation."
Dr. King returned to the United States and anyone remotely familiar with American history knows the extraordinary story of what happened next.
So, that unlikely acid trip that ended with George Harrison's mysterious inner reflection about the Yogis of the Himalayas began yet another major chapter in the story of how the evolution of consciousness has changed the world. And changed it for the better.
And even though a lot of the advances that happened came about as a result of some terrible cruelty, the truth is, the negativity had quite a silver lining. And for me, it's always important to remember that the only reason there ever is a silver lining, is because of the powerful light that is right behind those dark clouds.
Well, that's the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened and let's get together in the next one.
